The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1887-01-05
BUBBLLNG GOLD.
MAKING GOLD COINS IN AN
AMERICAN MINT. <.
The Process of Melting English Sow
ereisns and Converting the PFC
cious Metal Into American <
Money-Defective Coins.

warded from Australia in payment OF
wheat. were converted into American
half eagles at the mint in that city. We
quote as follows: -
When the assay is complete and the
transaction with the owner OF the gold
or silver closed. the Mint then proceeds
to effect. its metamorphosis. The Aus
tralian coin, for in stance, was put up in
tin boxes; these again are put. in larger
wooden boxes. which are locked with .
spring lock. Tho boxes have only some
twenty or thirty feet to travel to reach
the melting-room, but even for that short
distance, It is thought best to have them
locked. The whole principle on which
the business Of the Mint is conducted is
not that every one is thief, but-that
it is always safest to keep temptation out
of peoples way. When the boxes reach
the Superintendent of. the melting de-
partment, he weighs the bullion, and his
weight must tally with the weight of the
weighing.room. If it does, he proceeds
to blow up his fires. 80. =
His forge ls not unlike country
smithy. It is fed with mixture 'of
English coke and California coke, the
latter probably being employed merely
as matter of compliment to the State.
The work is really done with English
coke; no Mint Superintendent on this
coast has tried the McConnellsville coke
or the coke from Colorado. Into the
furnace filled with this coke and kept
burning by sharp natural draught, the
melter places his crucibles. These are
crooks such as r grandmothers used to
send butter to market in. They are made
of plumbago, and ure of all sizes. Some
of them will hold $4,000 of gold; but
the size preferred by the melters is one
which conveniently holds one thousand
half eagles or sovereigns. Whey they
are filled to this extent, the melter seizes
them with a powerful pair of pincers and
thrusts them into the furnace. The,
melting point of gold is assumed at the
San Francisco Mint to be .2140 degrees
Fahrenheit, though in reality the metal
fuses at few degrees less. A very few.
minutes suffices to reduce the soverelgns
first to mixed mass, then to pulp, and
finally to liquid. When the melter
notices that liquefcation is complete, he
withdraws his crucible from the furnace
and pours its contents into an iron mold,
of which large number stand ready to
his hand. Gold cools 80 quickly when
withdrawn from the furnace that the
liquid metal begins to solidify the mo-
ment it touches the iron mold. In few
minutes it is cool enough to be dumped
out of the mold into water bath, where
it is left till it cools sufficiently to be
handled by the fingers.
The first part of the operation is thus
complete. The sovereigns have ceased
to exist, and instead, we have a number
of bars of gold. We must now follow.
these to their destination, when they ap-
pear in the form of bright new crisp
half eagles, eagles and double eagles.
The first thing that is done with the
bars is to throw them into common
sink such as dIshwsshers use. Here they
are hammered to detatch from them any
pieces of fux or other impurity which
NAV have stuck to them in the melting
furnace. They look at this stage much,
like common building bricks, and being
about the sqme size, it is only BY hand
ling them that one realizes that tEeir con-
tents are ponderous metal and not mere
dried clay. These bars now pass into
another melting room and are remelted
into ingots. Ingots which are to be used
in coming eagles nominslly contain ST.
200 of gold; those out of which half ca
ples are to be made contain about 5000 OF
gold. IG is in this room that the delicate
process of alloying is conducted. The
gold coin of the | nited States is alloyed
with 10 per cent. of copper; thus when
the melter proposes to produce an ingot
of standard metal weighing 1000 ounces
he puts into his melting pot 500 ounces
of pure gold and 100 ounces o. pure cop
Der. The copper gives toughness to the
metal. The ingots are long strips OF
metal about foot long by one and one
half or two inches wide and not quite as
much thick. They now pass through
several powerful rollers under measure
of some 200 tons aud are rolled out into
ribbons of some SIX feet in length and OF
the thicknes, required for the coins It Is
Eproposed to make. This process IS gone
through several times and quite fire.
ouentIy the m:ta. has to be annealed by
passing through wood furnace and be-
ing plunged into water bath before 1t
acquires ductility enough to pass easily
between the rolls. -,
When, at last, the ribbons are OF the
exact size re juirel, aud the uniformity
of their sickness is tested by an lnstru-
mcnt which detects the last deviation
from the standard, they pass into the
cuttine-room. Here the ribbons pass
under cutter whi b neatly cuts exact
circular pieces of the size of O $5 or $40
or $40, as may be required, and the
workman returns the remainder OF MS
ribbon, the fringe, so to speak, to the
department from which he receives it.
The disks now resemble old coins which
have been worn so perfectly smooth by
long use that every vestige OF their
ORIGINAL impression has been removed.
No prudent dealer would take them for
a moment. The cutter forwards them to
the stamping department., and here the
work of milling and stamping is done.
So soft is the metal, and so powerful are
the stamping machines, that though the
smooth pieces are cold. they are slmul-
taneously stamped on both sides by a
single blow of the hammer. One ma
chine stamps $3.50 in iives in a minute
Another produces $50 900 in tens in an
hour. and another 100000 in twenties
in the same period of slime. The milling
takes no time whatever Then the coin
is complete. 49,.
t. doas not annear that the Mint in this